Haino’s voice is lost in introspective incantation while ghosts of Americana sound in the guitar, till O’Rourke begins to tap on strings, enticing Haino into breathy staccato rhythms that ebb gently away.īrötzmann is now exposed, muted and grizzling. It builds, threatens, and suddenly abates into a wordless Haino vocal lapped by guitar. The heart of this extraordinary, forty-nine minute long performance is a ghostly miasma, a howling wind of FX’d guitar and eerie vocalese. The pace is ponderous now, but emotions are running high. The rhythms of the string instruments run in parallel then pull apart, sparking saxophonic licks, before contracting once more, slowing to almost nothing just Shamisen picking over harmonica-like shimmers of what might be feedback sax.īrötzmann then plays a lovely, thoughtful colloquy against O’Rourke’s increasingly reverbed atmospherics, and Haino re-enters on guitar with a complimentary semi-acoustic tone, adding a new layer to the overarching rawness. O’Rourke patterns short runs, increasing tempo until they become rhythmic and Haino’s three-stringed Shamisen is pulled into sympathy, and Haino and Brötzmann trade raw vocalisations.
Then Haino introduces a constricted vocal, O’Rourke taps into the power supply, and Brötzmann begins to play more harshly, in anguished, compacted phrases. “Two City Blues 2” (49:10) begins atmospherically: Smears of slide guitar pricked by finger-picked Shamisen and curlicuing alto sax – a Blind Willie Johnson Texas blues, relocated to Japan. Yes, Brötzmann and Haino also have their own history, and the main performance here is ultimately stamped with the German saxophonist’s imprimatur, but it’s Haino and O’Rourke who jointly seem to determine the course and dynamics of the main performance, which was recorded at Shinjuku Pit Inn, Tokyo, one night in November 2010. This is probably best appreciated not as a new Peter Brötzmann album, but as fruit of the enduring partnership of Keiji Haino and Jim O’Rourke.